(Blurb to be revised)
*
In early spring of the tenth year of Qingjing, a divine lot chose the next successor of Zhaotu Snow Mountain.
Old Master Shi came to Nie Weiyu with a slip of paper he had never shown anyone. "His origins are shrouded in chaos, impossible to discern. His road ahead stretches far, its destination unknown."
Nie Weiyu never understood the old monk's cryptic words. Unfolding the paper, she said with a frown, "Speak plainly, or I won't help."
"Bring him safely and whole to the summit of the snow mountain."
Zhaotu had never chosen its next successor in the capital. Nie Weiyu raised an eyebrow and read out the name:
"Shi Que." A surname she had rarely heard.
Old Master Shi froze, then took the slip back. "Sorry, I gave you the wrong one. Someone brought this in today for prayers and a funeral rite."
"..."
*
Meng Du remembered the first thing Nie Weiyu said when she came to save him.
She said, "Don't die. You still have a life of honor ahead of you."
He thought it was just a trick of the Black and White Impermanence. How could someone as wretched and insignificant as him ever earn glory and respect?
The darkness around him was more frightening than the night his father died.
No one wanted him to live.
*
Shi Que found his own tomb in the north of a desolate mountain. When Nie Weiyu went to burn incense, she casually stuck a joss stick into his grave.
"This is a nobleman from the capital, a rare soul as pure as the breeze and bright as the moon..."
As she poured out one glowing compliment after another, Shi Que smiled, half doubtful and half amused, and asked how she knew such a nobleman who had died so young.
As Meng Du burned paper offerings nearby, he inexplicably sensed an unusual emotion in her voice.
Nie Weiyu did not actually know him. She only knew he was a powerful figure at the highest levels of the imperial court, a young hero praised by her father, and Prince Jingjia, who had died tragically at Bailiang Islet after falling one move short.
Her father said he had died a terrible injustice.
Theme: Good and evil are hard to distinguish, and the human heart is hard to fathom.
